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U R Kidding

In case you haven’t figured this out yet, Ash Wednesday lands on Valentine’s Day this year.

Clever candy makers haven’t missed a beat. You can buy those classic candy hearts with messages for Lent, such as “Ash to Ash” and “U R Dust.”

Valentine’s Day gives those of you debating about what to give up for Lent a great excuse not to forgo candy. What if your true love or an ill-fated secret lover gives you some gourmet chocolate? Is it fair to leave an expensive gift like that sitting around until — April Fool’s Day?

Because Easter is April 1, leaving many to ponder just how blasphemous it is to hear “Christ is Risen” alongside “April Fool’s!”

If you’re struggling with the decision whether or not to go to church for the first time since Christmas, let me help you make your decision. No small share of religious leaders will draw the connection between Christ and fools, ending with the admonition not to be a fool — follow Christ.

As a Christian with experience in a variety of denominations, I recognize my seeming flippancy may offend some. But I’m not finished. There is no shortage of worship services in the days preceding Easter. If you dread the crowds and the traffic, try one of those. It may actually be more meaningful to you.

U R Loved.

Image Credits: © stock.adobe.com

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illogical things are happening everyday

A college dropout – me? The National Merit Scholar, the one who dreamed about higher education?

problemThat didn’t make any sense.

Yet the first go-around, that’s what happened. I took on too much and burned out. Few close to me disputed the wisdom of my choice, but all agreed I should try again when I was ready.

It took three years to be ready, but when I was, I was. The second time, at a different university, was the charm, and when it comes to charm, no one had more than my ultra-geeky Logic professor.

Many of my fellow students foolishly and vocally didn’t see the need for Logic 101.

Actually, he wasn’t even a professor at the time; it was his first teaching experience after graduating with a doctorate in Philosophy.

He faced formidable odds. This was before today’s plethora of news programs with self-proclaimed experts whose statements deserve challenge at every turn. Many, if not most, of my fellow students foolishly and vocally didn’t see the need for Logic 101.

For me, initially it was a requirement to plough through, rather than something to grab hold of and internalize.  It turned out I couldn’t wait for the each class and the concepts I would take in. Today, I consciously apply what I learned on a regular basis.

You’d be surprised when you listen how many “experts” seem to forget, or perhaps ignore, logic.

For those unclear about what you learn in a logic course, it starts with this: “All cats are animals, but not all animals are cats”. You’d be surprised when you listen how many of the aforementioned “experts” seem to forget, or perhaps deliberately ignore, that logic.

To take the cats-animals-cats thinking a bit further, something like “Most (specific political party devotees) believe this…but not everyone who believes that is a (specific political party supporter)” escapes them.

Or, for sports fans, “if we’d scored that touchdown in the second quarter, we would have won.” Nuh-uh. Any real fan of football knows each play builds on the previous one, and scoring that touchdown would have created a different game. (Scoring a field goal without penalty in the last second, I’ll give you that one, even though technically the rule of logic wouldn’t).

So when you hear the pundits say, “my candidate in the last election never would have created the mess we’re in,” that simply is poor reasoning. You don’t know what your candidate might have done. But all sides smugly say it, or something similar, on a regular basis.

I’ll give you, in this last election, and after the last year, it’s hard to imagine any other candidate would have created the mess we’re in. But that’s speculation based on facts, not an absolute truth. It can’t be. It never happened.

That sort of simple logic is violated on a regular basis. Other practical elements are equally good to know.

Okay, I can’t necessarily apply anything I learned in that course to the logic of my decision to drop out the first time. Yet it clearly was the right choice. Or was it? I’ll never know, logically speaking, because I’ll never know what would have happened if I stuck with it.

image credit: Question marks © tiero – Dollar Photo Club; Black Hole © vchalup — stock.adobe.com

 

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Determination

I have long resented the idea that “everything happens for a reason.” But I do believe in looking for the good, the right, the valuable, no matter what your circumstance may be.

How can we tell the young boys in Afghanistan, pulled from their families to be made sex slaves for the military elite, that there is a reason for their torture and base treatment? To do so might seem to provide justification for this action. I cannot tell victims of war their pain is worthwhile. It is not for me to say.

But I can say good has sprung from the worst times of my life. I grow closer to achieving pride and self-worth. It is my own determination that brings this change, however, not the vile actions of others. They are rightly relegated to secondary, or lower, importance in my life.

In the years since I faced my foes, I evolved my thinking past the belief I was doomed to a lifetime of failure to understanding how my focus delivers results. Time and again I deal with people who tell me what to think, how to behave and even what kind of person I am. They do not determine my attitude.

My thinking is far from forceful or pushy. It’s an internal resolution to believe in good and accept the circumstances in my life that lead me to today. In accepting I am able to change some of it and graciously deal with the rest.

It is, at times, a daily exercise and a painful one. But the outcome is joy and contentment, and hope for the future. I can relax and enjoy life, not fret over what ill deed others may be concocting, or stew about what they’ve willfully done in the past.

In writing this, I do fear the idea I will be pushed again, by circumstances worse than before. I can’t dwell on that, however. I can only deal with what today brings me.

Image © Lightstock

 

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moving forward

Earlier this week I alluded to the “rabbit’s hole” I speak of in this post.  In honor of a new era,  I’m reposting this piece, a favorite of mine:

A few weeks ago I found myself sitting alone in a crowd, anxiously searching for a familiar face.

I was expecting a friend–until her text  told me not to. Now I was faced with sitting by myself at a celebratory service that would no doubt be an emotional, spiritual, uplifting experience (it was). I started looking for anyone I might know, a bit nervous but not wanting to seem so.

Thankfully, someone did appear, a more than gregarious man, well-known for being a bit of a character.  I’d only met him once for all of thirty seconds, but I didn’t hesitate to call out his name and invite him to join me. He did, and it made that service a whole heck of a lot of fun.

It wasn’t until days later it hit me:

this was not only the first time I’d had the courage to do something that bold, but I hadn’t thought twice about it. For years I’d sat alone in services and what-have-you, often because I was too frightened to reach out to someone and ask them to join me.

This was another significant change in me I could count as the result of terrible betrayal.

All my life I struggled with being pushed around by co-workers, boyfriends, classmates, even family. I simply could not stand up for myself. Try as I might, I was unable to say what needed to be said, or even imagine what that should be. Instead I would stand there, dumbstruck, humiliated and frustrated.

I desperately wanted the ability to detect when others were pushing me around.

That is, if I were sharp enough to see what was going on. Sometimes I’d be pushed pretty far before I realized it.

When that happened, I was left with shrinking further or getting back at people, although more often than not they brought on their own trouble with their back-handed behavior. I didn’t like dealing with things either way, however, it never felt good.

Instead, I desperately wanted the ability to detect when others were pushing me around and belittling me long before it got out of hand. More than that, I wanted to project an attitude that precluded demeaning treatment. I just couldn’t come by it. I had no idea how it worked.

Eventually I was pushed down a rabbits’ hole into a hell that wouldn’t end,

and it was that experience (a story requiring too much detail to go into here) that finally gave me the insight and ability to stay ahead of those who would defeat me. It took a long time, well after the peak of the horror, to fully develop the skills to face others with confidence and enough of a take-it-or-leave-it attitude that I could claim victory. Have I fully stepped away from the problem? Likely not, but I’ve figured out what steps to take.

I also realize I need to use those circumstances to my advantage, to work toward bringing me to a point where I can say, “well, I wouldn’t want to go through that again, but I’m glad it happened.”

I’m not sure when, if ever, I’ll be there, but I look to the good that’s come of out this, and it has been substantial. I used to resent being told “everything happens for a reason.”  While I believe good can come from bad, that doesn’t justify the bad.

I like what Dumas had to say. It acknowledges the bad, but gives proper credit to an overwhelming and affirming end result:

“Women are never so strong as after their defeat.”
― Alexandre Dumas, Queen Margot, or Marguerite de Valois

blue sky balloons

I hate that it took such drastic circumstances to bring about this change for me, and I sometimes wonder, if those events hadn’t conspired, would I still be where I was then, or would I have found another way to grow to where I am today?

I don’t want those responsible for my plight to believe there’s any justification to their actions. Likely they would have preferred I was left in defeat and despair anyway. Is success the best revenge? I don’t know that I’m seeking revenge, but success is by far the best outcome.


Image Credits: Butterfly field (Field of Daisies) © adimas – Fotolia; (Butterfly) © ecco — Fotolia; Balloons Flying High (Sky Background) © Andrii Salivon – Fotolia; (Balloons) © JRB – Fotolia.